OPPO's "high-end" warfare: "dual flagship" strategy to help market leadership new flagship stores to enhance the offline layout
Affected by macroeconomic fluctuations and weakening consumer demand for replacement machines, the smartphone market has been under pressure in recent years. In the face of the new normal of the industry, the impact of high-end market to seek a breakthrough, digging new increment has become the common choice of a number of domestic cell phone manufacturers. And in this "high-end" war, Android machines who can shake Apple, grab more market share is therefore also a lot of attention.
On June 30, Counterpoint Research, a global industry analyst firm, released a white paper on China's high-end smartphone market, showing that the high-end market in China will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% between 2017 and 2022, with high-end cell phone sales in China accounting for more than 26% of the overall market in 2022.
Among them, benefiting from the "image + fold" dual flagship strategy, especially the strong rise of folding screen phones, OPPO's performance is particularly outstanding, its share of China's high-end Android market from 9.8% in 2018 to 13.3% in 2022, sales growth of 22%.
"I believe we will have more than double-digit growth in the next three to five years." Liu Bo, vice president of OPPO and president of China, said in a media interview on June 30, talking about the goal of high-end market development. On the same day, OPPO also announced the official opening of its largest new image flagship store in Guangzhou.
The rise of domestic high-end machine market against the trend
OPPO's market share jumped
Counterpoint Research said in a white paper that over the past six years, high-end smartphone sales have grown against the trend despite the overall market being in a downward spiral. 2018 saw China overtake Europe to become the world's second largest high-end smartphone market, with sales once exceeding 80 million in 2021 and a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% between 2017 and 2022. The growth rate reached 9.8%.
Meanwhile, in 2022, China's high-end handset sales accounted for more than 26% of the overall market, with the share of the ultra-high-end (wholesale price ≥ $700) market increasing significantly from 2021.
In this regard, CounterpointResearch analyzes that flagship products bring together the cutting-edge technology of the cell phone industry, which is the centralized embodiment of the cutting-edge technological power of cell phone brands and is most capable of inspiring consumers' desire to switch. In the context of the country's strategy to expand domestic demand and enhance consumer consumption, consumer demand for high-end smartphones will also grow, providing opportunities for domestic brands to seek high-quality development.
The continued breakthrough in the high-end market and optimistic future expectations have also caused domestic cell phone manufacturers to continue to step up their layout in this track. Data show that the number of new flagships released in 2022 exceeds 40, and as of April 2023, the head brands have all launched their latest flagship series, achieving a full range of upgrades from main chip, storage, wireless connectivity to display, image, and then fast charging.
"The essence is still to change the user's perception of the past cell phone, to give them new scenarios and meet new experiences, so that it can boost consumption and also boost the route of high-quality development." Liu Bo said.
In this battle of the herd, as the head brand of domestic cell phones, OPPO in the domestic high-end Android market share jumped particularly eye-catching, from 9.8% in 2018 to 13.3% in 2022, sales growth of 22%.
Folding screen "breakthrough" high-end machine track
OPPO fully implement dual flagship strategy
The breakthrough of domestic cell phone brands represented by OPPO in the high-end market also verifies the effectiveness of the "dual flagship strategy" of straight flagship + folding screen flagship on the road to high-end.
CounterpointResearch said that in the current dual flagship system, the straight screen flagship, as the basic plate of domestic brands competing for the high-end market, will continue to lead the all-round upgrade of cell phone hardware specifications. From the point of view of the flagship products already listed, image upgrade is still the top priority, and it is also the key for domestic brands to show the technological power and differentiation of their products.
On the other hand, folding screen flagships provide strong new growth momentum. 2022, the Chinese market folding screen phone shipments reached 3.3 million, sales exceeded 3 million, both the world's first. counterpointResearch expects that shipments of folding screen phones in China will exceed 5 million in 2023, the market is expected to explode in 2024, and The market is expected to explode in 2024 and continue to grow steadily after that, helping China to sit as the world's largest folding screen market.
Currently, folding screen has become a new track for domestic brands seeking high-end breakthroughs, and after Huawei and Samsung were the first to launch folding screen phones in the Chinese market in 2019, more and more domestic cell phone vendors have joined in, and the competitive landscape has quietly changed. market performance, OPPO folding screen sales grew by more than 300% year-on-year, leaping to the top of China's folding screen market with a 28.4% share.
"For now, OPPO is on the right path and on a fast development path." In this regard, Liu Bo said that both from the net recommendation value of users of OPPOFindN2 and other products, and from the growth of sales and market scale, it proves that this path of OPPO's high-end is the right one. "After the product iteration is stable, the internal operation, research and development, marketing, sales, this sense of rhythm between various departments is very good, and the team is also very stable."
With the release of OPPOFindN2 series and FindX6 series in 2023, OPPO's dual flagship strategy of "image + fold" has been fully implemented. The OPPOFindX6Pro will set a new benchmark for straight screen image flagships, and its sales from March to May this year have been ranked among the top 3 domestic models in the price range of 5,500 to 7,000 yuan. at the same time, CounterpointResearch expects the cumulative sales of the OPPOFindN2 series to exceed 500,000 units in the first half of the year.
"In the future, we will work on these two tracks for a long time, we want to be the best phone in the field of imaging to take pictures, and we also want to do better in the field of folding." Liu Bo said.
Continue to accelerate offline layout
Build flagship stores to increase the high-end market
Counterpoint Research expects that, in anticipation of the overall market rebound and accelerated growth in demand for folding screens, the sales of smartphones with a retail price above 4,000 yuan will again come to more than 75 million units in 2023, and this part of the market is expected to break through the previous high in the short term and will maintain an upward and upward momentum.
It is worth noting that, in the face of the optimistic outlook of the high-end market, OPPO promotes the dual flagship strategy of "image + folding", actively innovates and breaks through in the "no man's land", enriches its product portfolio, and also continues to make efforts in the layout of offline stores to create a retail The brand image high point.
On June 30, OPPO announced the official opening of its Guangzhou flagship store, which is also the largest new flagship store of OPPO nationwide. The new flagship store showcases the full range of OPPO products, including the latest Find series, Reno series, OPPO watch, OPPOPad, One Plus Digital series and One Plus Ace series, as well as limited customized products.
Liu Bo said that although the proportion of online is very large in the future, users still need more contact and communication with the brand. "Our research found that when users are in contact with the brand, they prefer to see physical stores as well as being able to touch our real machines. Especially for OPPO, we are very good at doing design and texture, and these things are to touch and see."
It is understood that in 2023, OPPO plans to do 300 stores similar to the style and experience of the flagship store in Guangzhou. "We want to make this area better and make our channel more complete. Especially in the core cities, the first line, the new first line, these places, we will invest more resources." Liu Bo said in the interview that OPPO has launched an internal Top50 cities plan, which will target to deepen the market through some experience store resources, marketing resources and user operation resources, and develop from products, marketing to channels, with three arrows.
